Classy McFadden reaps rewards

World Series Sprintcar champion James McFadden’s summary of Speedweek failed to do justice to the rewards his world-class driving delivered.

The Queensland dynamo pocketed $20,000 for winning two of Speedweek’s A mains and collected an extra $5000 for being the series leader after five rounds of WSS racing.

McFadden heads to Brisbane for round six of WSS tomorrow night with 1440 points ahead of South Australians Luke Dillon, 1304 and Steven Lines, 1254.

His last success came on Tuesday night at Allansford’s Premier Speedway where he won the A main on a night with no shortage of drama.

Rain delayed the start of the race and pole-sitter McFadden immediately dropped behind Kyle Hirst when it got under way.

A spectacular four-car crash on the first lap involving Darren Mollenoyux, Jason Johnson, Stephen Bell and Luke Dillon forced a restart but McFadden again was out sprinted.

But he bided his time and seized control of the 35-lap feature on lap 16, passing on the low line in turn one as runner-up Hirst battled lapped traffic above.

Young South Australian Daniel Pestka earned his best WSS finish by placing third. “I knew lap cars were going to be the deciding factor. It’s pretty brutal when the track has got rain like that,” McFadden said at presentations.

“Luckily enough for us he got a little high and hung up and we got underneath him. Lap cars seemed to get out of our way.” McFadden later credited his crew for changing the set-up of the NQ25 car to cater for the rain-affected track.

“I like this place, it gets pretty fast and it’s hard to turn the car when it rains like that,” he said.

“It was so slick before and it went so fast. It was a guessing game and we got it right tonight.

“We just freed up the car a lot, moved the wheels out and put a smaller left rear tyre on so I could turn easier, that was all we needed to do.”

The early pile-up was one of a host of dramas as the A main became a battle for survival.

Danny Smith also hit the wall after a steering issue out of turn two on lap 24 while Steven Lines, Ricky Maiolo, Tim Kaeding and Matt Egel pulled infield.

McFadden, who is also the new leader of the Premier Speedway track championship, accepted he was in the box seat to defend his 2011-12 WSS crown.

But he said he felt more pressure to perform in the Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic this month.“To me the Classic is the biggest one that I want to win,” he said.

“We haven’t done that. We have to keep digging for it and we’ll see how we go with the series.